Education Week - October 10, 2012 - 17

EDUCATION WEEK

OCTOBER 10, 2012

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GOVERNMENT

POLITICS
THEY WANT YOUR VOTE
Voters in four states will elect new state schools chiefs on Nov. 6. Three of the four races are partisan elections; all but one race features an incumbent running for re-election. All four states have legislatures controlled by Republicans. Key issues include the role of standardized tests, the power of local districts versus that of state education departments, and funding.
INDIANA
Tony Bennett (R) Incumbent
Mr. Bennett was elected superintendent of public instruction in 2008 and has touted the state’s work in Advanced Placement course participation and an increasing graduation rate. He has implemented major changes to teacher evaluations and school accountability. He is a close ally of outgoing Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, and has clashed with teachers’ unions.

POLICY BRIEF

Chiefs’ Races Blend Issues, State Politics
4 states to pick K-12 leaders
By Andrew Ujifusa
School finance, the role of standardized tests, and local control of education policy are among the hot issues as candidates vie for the top school leadership spot in four states next month, with three incumbent state superintendents running hard on their records as they seek another term in office. The visibility of elections for top state education jobs has CAMPAIGN increased in recent years, as has the amount of money being spent on campaigns, said Chris Minnich, the senior membership director at the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers. For example, in Indiana, incumbent Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett, a Republican, had a campaign war chest of $779,000 at the end of the second quarter in June, the most recent quarterly report available from the secretary of state’s office. His Democratic opponent, Glenda Ritz, reported a balance of $25,000. But money and national issues aren’t the only key elements in these top leadership campaigns, Mr. Minnich added: “Inside-state politics matter a lot in each one of these elections.”

N.J.’s Bullying Law Yielding First Data
More than 12,000 incidents of bullying were reported by schools during the 2011-12 school year under New Jersey’s new state anti-bullying law, the state department of education reports. But an advocate who helped draft that law said the actual number of incidents may be much higher. The report, issued last week, acknowledges that there are discrepancies in the number of harassment, intimidation, and bullying reports, possibly because the procedures are new and more training is needed. Statewide, districts reported conducting 35,553 investigations and confirming almost 40 percent of them as harassment, intimidation, and bullying incidents. “We must remain vigilant in our efforts to work toward better identification and reporting from our schools and districts,” state Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said in a statement. But Stuart Green, the executive director of the New Jersey Coalition for Bullying Awareness and Prevention, said that while he is glad the reporting is creating greater awareness of bullying, he has no confidence in the reported numbers. “The [reporting system] is fatally flawed,” he said. “It is still self-reported by the districts.” He added, “the more we take this system seriously, the more validity we give it.”
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Glenda Ritz (D)
Ms. Ritz has won “teacher of the year” awards at two schools and has the backing of the Indiana State Teachers Association. A teacher in the Indianapolis area, she has criticized Mr. Bennett’s teacher policies as being too focused on standardized testing in areas from preparation to evaluation. She also opposes recent state takeovers of individual schools.

MONTANA
Denise Juneau (D) Incumbent
Ms. Juneau was elected superintendent of public instruction in 2008, and was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., in September. During her term, she has launched a statewide Graduation Matters initiative designed to improve high school completion and postsecondary readiness. She is a member of the Hidatsa and Mandan Native American tribes.

2012

Sandy Welch (R)
Ms. Welch has worked as a teacher and principal and now runs a consulting business. She believes districts should have more control over education decisions and has pledged to reduce state-level regulations to give districts flexibility. She also wants to open state trust lands to more resource development to generate more revenue for public schools.

NORTH CAROLINA
June Atkinson (D) Incumbent
Ms. Atkinson was first elected superintendent of public instruction in 2004 and has worked at the state education department in various capacities since 1976. She has overseen a 12-point increase in the graduation rate over the past six years. She wants to expand online learning opportunities to high-demand courses in state public schools.

Hoosier Home Stretch
Ms. Ritz, Mr. Bennett’s challenger in Indiana, is strongly opposed to the incumbent’s education policies. She has argued that they are inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative Washington-based group that provides model state legislation and has outraged some education advocates by promoting policies like “parent trigger” laws, which allow parents to initiate the process of converting a school into a charter. She also has accused Mr. Bennett of turning the teaching profession, through changes in programs such as teacher licensing and evaluation, into a high-stakes game of getting enough right answers on an exam, or trying to ensure students do. “In the state of Indiana, it’s all about a pass-fail test,” said Ms. Ritz, who has the backing of the
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John Tedesco (R)
Mr. Tedesco is a member of the Wake County board of education, which oversees a public school system with roughly 147,000 students; he also serves as president of the North Carolina Center for Education Reform, which supports mentoring and community partnerships for schools. He says he would work better with the Republican-dominated legislature than Ms. Atkinson has.

NORTH DAKOTA (NONPARTISAN)
Kirsten Baesler
Ms. Baesler has been the president of the Mandan school board since 2006 and a member since 2004; she has also worked as an assistant principal and media specialist. She supports policies that stress early literacy and also wants to explore allowing charter schools to begin operating in the state. She supports the Common Core State Standards.

Tracy Potter
Mr. Potter, a former state senator and former Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, says he dislikes his opponent’s description of herself as a Republican in the nonpartisan race. He says teaching is an art form that should not be measured by standardized testing; he also wants to increase state funding for public schools to hire more teachers.

Romney’s No-Cuts Pledge a Debate-Night Startler
By Michele McNeil
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney made his strongest commitment yet to education by promising in last week’s debate with President Barack Obama not to cut federal school funding if elected. But whether he could uphold that pledge while also reining in a mounting federal deficit is an open question. “I’m not going to cut education funding. I don’t have any plan to cut education funding and—and grants that go to people going to college. ... I’m not planning on making changes there,” Mr. Romney said during the Oct. 3 debate at the University of Denver. The statement marked the first time in the campaign that Mr. Romney specifically addressed education spending—something he’s been continually attacked on by Mr. Obama’s campaign. “I don’t want to cut our commitment to education,” the gop nominee said. “I want to make it more effective and efficient.” Mr. Romney has been hammered by the Obama campaign since the former Massachusetts governor picked as his running mate U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, who put forth a controversial budget that would cut domestic discretionary funding, which includes education, by 20 percent. “Governor Romney doesn’t think we need more teachers. I do,” the president said during last week’s debate, the first of three scheduled between the two candidates. Though Mr. Romney has called the Ryan budget “marvelous,” his education advisers have said that he wouldn’t necessarily adopt the plan wholesale.

Prominent Theme
Education was a prominent theme throughout the 90-minute Denver debate, as both candidates sought to link the quality of American schools to the country’s economic future. Mr. Romney’s pledge to not cut
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The report provides some insight into how bullying takes place in school. More than 70 percent of incidents, almost 8,600, were in the form of an insult that demeaned a student or group of students. Almost 78 percent of the incidents were verbal, while 19 percent were physical. Some incidents include more than one form of bullying; 12 percent were through electronic communication and 7 percent were written notes. A student’s sexual orientation was the basis for 11 percent of incidents, gender accounted for 10 percent, a disability for 9 percent, and race for 8 percent. More than 60 percent were based on what was categorized as “another distinguishing characteristic.” The report found that bullying took place in a variety of places in and outside of school buildings, including classrooms, hallways, cafeterias, and on school buses. Disciplinary action primarily involved detention or suspension, according to the report.
—McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE

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Education Week - October 10, 2012

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